Abortion and the Beginning and End of Human Life

The doctrine that it is wrong to end the existence of something because it is a human life (unless special circumstances obtain) I call "the standard view." I argue that attempts by proponents of abortion choice to avoid the implications of the standard view by suggesting that we don't know when life begins or by suggesting that fetuses are only potential lives fail. Nevertheless, opponents of abortion choice should not base their arguments on the standard view, for the standard view is false. I propose a substitute for the standard view that avoids the difficulties with it, that explains why most people believe that the standard view is true and that also underwrites opposition to abortion choice.     

Beyond the Ghetto: Police Power,Methamphetamine and the Rural War on Drugs

Viewing police as important cultural producers, we ask how police power fashions structures of feeling and social imaginaries of the “war on drugs” in small towns of the rural Midwest. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and a collection of interviews focusing on police officers’ beliefs about the causes of crime and drug use, we locate a narrative of rural decline attributed to the producers and users of methamphetamine. We argue this narrative supports punitive and authoritarian sensibilities and broader narcopolitical projects more generally and ignores long-standing social inequalities observed in rural communities. As such, the cultural work of rural police provides important insight to the shape and direction of late-modern crime control beyond the familiar terrains of the city and its “ghetto.”     

Ybarra. Ugh.

The last time the Ninth Circuit decided an exclusionary land use control case, there was no clear-cut victory for either side, the result in Southern Alameda Spanish Speaking Organization v. Union City, 424 F.2d 291, 22 ZD 246 (9th Cir. 1970) being that the Chicano, low-income housing group did not get to use the site it wanted, but the court opined that Union City had to provide some sites somewhere. But in Ybarra v. City of Town of Los Altos Hills, 503 F.2d 250, 26 ZD 426 (9th Cir. 1974) the plaintiff Chicano group lost all.     

The debate on a regional arms register in Southeast Asia

Abstract

ASEAN member states are no longer opposed in principle to military information sharing and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is now actively considering ideas for new confidence‐building measures in this area. The first specific transparency measure supported by ARF was the UN Register of Conventional Arms, whose success in the region has been a result, at least in part, of its flexibility. Because of the limited scope of the UN Register, debate has continued on the possibility of a regional Register. As this debate has proceeded, however, it has become apparent that the creation of such a Register will require a number of complex and difficult issues to be resolved. What additional data should such a Register include? Who should be responsible for operating such a Register? Which countries should be included? Because of these difficulties, the prospects of a regional Register being established in the near future are rather slender. But, as they become more comfortable with the concept of transparency, there is still considerable scope for ARF members to do more to adopt regional ‘best practice’ in their replies to the main UN Register. The Register formula of framework plus flexibility could also be used as a model for the development of parallel transparency arrangements in areas other than arms transfers. The experience of the Register debate suggest that the development of concrete confidence‐building measures in the ARF region is likely to be a gradual process. Progress is possible, but is unlikely to transform levels of national openness on military affairs overnight. The main obstacles to increased transparency may prove to be domestic and political rather than international and military: demonstrating once again the way in which the confidence‐building agenda is linked to broader debates about the necessary political foundations of a secure regional order.     

Contested Engagements: Youth and the Politics of Citizenship

In this paper, a framework is presented for exploring how youth perform their citizenship through political engagements. The framework provides a way to explore the agency of youthful citizens as imagined by different agents and the ways that youth understand their performances as citizenship. Using interviews with university students and administrators at six universities in Manchester and Glasgow, a distinction is highlighted between agency and the performance of political acts in the production of citizenship, and the implications of this distinction for the development of autonomous citizens.     

National development and the globalisation discourse: Confronting 'imperative' and 'convergence' notions

The Bonn Agreement of December 2001 lays the foundations for a political transition in Afghanistan after 23 years of war. The agreement excludes the defeated party, the Taliban, while seeking to commit the remaining groups to a long-term and loosely defined peace process. With Afghan regionally based political-military groups defined largely along ethnic lines, and closely linked to external powers, rebuilding national authority will be a slow and conflictual process. Rebuilding the coercive capacity of the state is essential to overcome strong centrifugal tendencies, yet must be timed so as not to get ahead of the restoration of legitimate political authority. International assistance can support the political recovery by being conscious of the need to neutralise the 'spoilers' of the peace process. Making haste slowly in aiding economic recovery can prevent armed competition for power at the centre. To promote this kind of transition, and promote Afghan influence in the peace-building process, the international aid community must fundamentally reorient the strategies and methods of past involvement in the country.     

A Ferris Wheel Accident at a Movable Amusement Park

This study presented a Ferris wheel accident case. A Ferris wheel is composed of many parts, and the outmost ring of it is assembled using a lock pin. This accident occurred because the lock pin caught the door of a gondola and the gondola overturned. Five of the seven passengers in the gondola fell to the ground, along with the gondola's viewing window. The investigation revealed that the gondola became stuck when its door was caught by a lock pin at the Ferris wheel's three o'clock position. The contact between the door and the lock pin was due to a structural problem: There was not enough space allotted between the door and the lock pin. Therefore, if a passenger pushed on the gondola's door, the potential existed for contact between the door and the lock pin.     

Mandating treatment for drug possessors: The impact of Senate Bill 123 on the criminal justice system in Kansas

Kansas' Senate Bill 123 (SB 123) created mandatory community-based drug treatment for individuals convicted of first- or second-offense drug possession. This study examined the impact of SB 123 on sentencing practices, supervision, and treatment services across Kansas. The study indicated that SB 123 diverted drug possessors not from prison, as intended, but from one form of community supervision to another, subjecting more offenders to greater surveillance and longer sentences. Such “front-end” net-widening was due to the structure of the law itself and a lack of understanding of pre-implementation sentencing practices. In some counties, judges engaged in some circumvention of the law, suggesting possible local-level differences in buy-in among courtroom actors; such circumvention was also focused on offenders with more serious criminal histories, indicating judicial-level evaluations of offender amenability to treatment. While SB 123 offenders received the treatment they were assessed to need, the provision of treatment remained heavily concentrated in a few providers, increasing disparities in access to treatment and making the success of the program highly dependant on a small number of institutional actors.     

Self-Interest,Automaticity, and the Psychology of Conflict of Interest

This paper argues that self-interest and concern for others influence behavior through different cognitive systems. Self-interest is automatic, viscerally compelling, and often unconscious. Understanding one's ethical and professional obligations to others, in contrast, often involves a more thoughtful process. The automatic nature of self-interest gives it a primal power to influence judgment and make it difficult for people to understand its influence on their judgment, let alone eradicate its influence. This dual-process view offers new insights into how conflict of interest operate and it suggests some new avenues for addressing them or limiting some of their greatest dangers.